Hi Jeff, me again!
I was leaving off until others had a chance, but no-one has come. As I said in the previous threads about cormorants, I have already spilled whatever expertise I have (less than I hoped) on BF.
I'm thinking that these are not five different birds, but one or two birds shot in a sequence.
If you look at your photo #4, I think you can see the absolutely classic Temminck's face and head. The small amount of yellow behind the eye in a vertical stripe which then goes sharply backwards starting in a line from the bill centre, and then reversing in a clear concave line under the bill. The total amount of yellow is not great. Also the head appears smaller (thinner?) than the neck which is something I've noticed on Temminck's seen at the right angle.
And the other photos seems to fall into the same pattern (#5 is presumably the same bird as #4, and maybe #3 also (although here the vertical yellow behind the eye looks thicker and not so clear), so I'm happy with them all being Temminck's.
But to my eye at least, the 'sheen' on the bird looks more like bronze, not the supposed green sheen on Temminck's that Brazil mentions. I think you actually can see this distinction in certain lights, but in my experience it's not a good feature in an individual photo (or perhaps a clear green sheen would indicate Temminck's, but a bronze-ish sheen doesn't rule it out).
Anyway, I'm happy with these being Temminck's. After all, they are supposed to be the normal cormorant in Hokkaido - though as I said before, I'm not at all convinced that they are as exclusive as Brazil - and Hokkaido Stu - claim.
I'm hoping that Mark Brazil's 'Birds of Japan' coming out in August (I don't know Mark personally, though I did exchange e-mails with him a couple of times a few years ago) will not be just 'Birds of East Asia' with the birds that don't come to Japan edited out, but will actually have (some, anyway) updated information (for example, I have seen Shelduck in Hidaka in November but Brazil doesn't mark it for Hokkaido or Honshu at all), and (some, anyway) added information (e.g. the likely months to see migratory species, significantly more detail on locations for species in Japan, maybe even preferred foods and moulting seasons).
Well, we'll see.
HTH
